23.6.13

A dollop of daisy


Jay Gatsby is not in love with a woman. He's in love with his image of himself, and comes to invest Daisy with all his ambition and delusions of what 'being an aristocrat' might mean. She is the key, and he loves her for all his projected need. Daisy as a person does not exist. She is a prize. Did Fitzgerald give thought to what the decision might mean to a woman, to divorce, to cause a scandal, to leave 'old money' for 'new money'? Did he talk to any women about this? Judging from his female characters, I'm not sure he knew any real women who would talk to him.

The take away message for me from Great Gatsby is that class matters, and we ought not to aspire to a higher station. Did he intend that? If he didn't, why did he kill off the two 'social climbing' characters, and allow the 'careless' upper echelon to continue their worthless lives? Sure, Carraway declares judgement as our everyman narrator. But no punishment accrues.

Is that the point? Is it an indictment of a society that rewards aristocrats?

PS - Kudos to Carey Mulligan on infusing some life into a character that is only a shell of reflected man-need.

PPS - This felt like the first 3d movie that was based on a future idea of TV/movies. Where the 3d wasn't the point, it was just icing.

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